The Fandom Machine
by Ciel0307
Summary: In a world approx. 25 years later than SAO the human body is able to enter a digital reality. In this story watch as all fandoms collide into a race to save those who become trapped. NOTE: This is a Dual POV co written with Turtlegirl13
1. Prolouge

Prologue

December 21st 2050

"Video Log … Just recently I'd Finished coding the final touches of the program and began Beta testing. With the rate that things are proceeding, I should be able to release by New Year's Day. *Providing nothing wrong happens*. It's Hard to believe the rate this came together. I mean just this year Digitizing Tech. was made safe and we are now able to put an entire being inside a computer, pretty much unlocking eternal life! Err … Almost …

"Now I just can't wait until my newest code is out there … I call it, _The Fandom Machine_. End log"


	2. Sequence 1: A New Player in the Game

The first thing I notice as I regain consciousness is the *pitter-patter* of soft rain on the window. Second is the all too well known feeling of a keyboard applying a normal force to my temporal lobe.

"Must've zonked out coding again," I say narrating to myself.

I Look around my bleak and dreary room, made especially bleak and dreary by this dreadful weather, but there's not really a reason to have it as anything other than functional.

The majority of the attention goes to this corner of the room anyway. This corner is my office, dining room, living room and any other form of comfort *Sadly more often than not it is also my bed.*

I don't really look for anything in a living space other than shelter and internet connection. *Of course. I mean, how else could I do research by binge watching too many episodes of mainstream entertainment?*

I log on to my computer and check my blog to see how the BETA testers are doing. Just about a month ago, I offered the download to 50,000 people to beta test it. *most of these people are snobby rich kids who have nothing better to do with their lives, but hey, lab rats are lab rats right even if they're a little pampered* Most of the reviews show that it's going well. It seems as if people don't want to leave. The major complaint is that you can only exist in one fandom at a time, but that can't be fixed so soon. The Research Conversion (RC) system only has enough processing power to create one interactive fandom per personal digitizing computer.

I Log off the Blog and boot up my digitizer. *How Hypocritical, right? Calling the owners of digitizing computers rich snob while i own one myself. But I'm Not. Because I install these systems for a living (and not a very good one), I know how to assemble, build, and repair them. So basically, I built my own.*

While the lightning fast boot up sequence is finishing, I don the safety helmet. *My boot up sequence is so fast because I built it a wee bit better than that of the modern versions.*

"Safety first," I mumbled to myself.

The helmet is a revolutionary idea by some genius Japanese scientist Kazuto Kirigaya. It ensures that all of your mind goes in, and comes out together. This way no casualties occur when using the machine.

"Start Up sequence finished," States the computer in the pre programmed digital voice.

"Link Start!" I exclaim with the same giddy anticipation I had the first time.

My body hums with electricity as I begin to sense a feeling of weightlessness. The system goes into Sensory checks. Sight *check*, Sound *check*, Touch *check*, Taste *check*, and Smell *check*. The screen fades to black, then to white, and I find myself in the main lobby. No longer am I myself, I have become Ciel, the GM (Game Master). Hardly any players know my character, because I keep a low profile, and choose plain features and clothing that can be found in the starting areas of any MMORPG.

As players roam around, I make my way to the nearest GM console, to monitor player activity, and check to see if anything is wrong with the RC system. The system is unlike any other system operating right now on the digitizing computers. This, my brainchild, uses the computers to their fullest capacity to create unique digital universes. It takes a given data entry, and researches all known sources in order to piece together a fictional, or nonfictional world for you to interact with. What makes it so revolutionary is the fact that it writes and rewrites its own code so the possibilities are limitless, one could explore events that haven't happened at all.

As I finish my GM duties, a girl walks by. At first glance, she is rather homely. But, what does "catch the eye" is the severe amount of concealed weapons she carries. Not just that but a lot of those weapons seem to be from around the 13th century. I follow her with my eyes as she continues to an older area of the large main room.

"Where could she be going?" I mutter to myself.

Slowly at first, I begin to follow her seeing where she would go. As I follow her she keeps her head down, deftly maneuvering through crowded halls, until she (we) is (are) in a large empty room. A few servers dot the walls, but not like the vast amounts in the latest server rooms today.

As I enter the room the girl dematerializes into the latest server. This girl, why am I following her? I shrug, and walk over to the Fandomverse (copyright pending on that term)

"Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood," I read, "What game is this?" It seems that all of the games along the walls are all the same series, this Assassin's Creed.

I google it quickly and find that this series was made earlier this century. The basic premise of the games are that of two groups, the Assassins and Templars, fighting throughout multiple different time periods, for various reasons. Apparently in each game a person goes back in time using their DNA to relive the memories of their ancestors on a machine called the ANIMUS.

This all makes sense now, I think to myself, She must be an assassin or whatnot.

Again, I find myself questioning why I'm following this girl. Shrugging again, I click the enter button on the screen.

The familiar feeling of weightlessness appears for a moment as a large sprawling Renaissance type city forms around me. A caption presents itself:

"ROME 15th CENTURY"

Hmmm. Fun time period, but where did SHE go?

I pull up the synopsis again as I meander in a random direction. Actually this game seems pretty interesting. A lot of killer features (pun intended), like assassination and melee fighting, crowd blending, also with historical ties. It makes sense that people liked this series.

Soon enough I find myself lost in some ancient ruins with only NPCs around. At that moment the cool edge of a blade presents itself upon my throat.

"Why are you following me?" Says a steady deadly calm female voice.

She found me huh? I should probably be as much to the point as her knife is.

"Well I happened to notice the large amount of odd weapons you were carrying," I explain casually, "and I was curious as to where you were headed."

"Concise, … interesting." She says as she removes the now hidden blade, and steps into my field of view.

Now that I can legitimately see her, I notice that I was dead (another assassination pun) wrong when I called her homely before. Her features radiate natural beauty, with long brown hair, a smooth but not perfect rounded face. Her eyes, that seemed to remind me of a forest with their green border leading into a dark brown center, said that she was always calculating, always thinking, or just off in some other world somewhere. The rest of her was just natural curves…

"Whenever you're done checking me out, I can help you find your way back to the newbie area." She states in a rather bored tone.

"What! No! I wasn't… ah nevermind. Actually could you show me around this game more?"

"No I'm pretty sure you're more than capable yourself" Still the same bored tone.

"What makes you say that?" I cough out a nervous laugh. This girl I think she's onto me (about being the GM)

"Because, there's a player intro and walkthrough for every game in the system.

Phew that was close, for a second there I thought I was found out. I'll have to be careful around her.

"Right, right. Of course." I add while simultaneously pulling up the game menu. "Hey, are you sure you can't give me some pointers, because this walkthrough isn't working." I ask after slyly disabling the walkthrough (ah GM privileges).

She sighs discontentedly and, in that same bored tone, says, "Well I suppose I have no other choice, because you won't leave me alone anyway.

I laugh, "You got that right."

...

We ran across the town as I pointed out places that held side-missions, shops, and even some secrets of the game. Everyone once in awhile, I'd glance over at the newbie. He had a simple outfit on, unlike me. I had on a more eye catching outfit. The colors on my outfit were brighter, but I had a dark cape that covered the green costume. His was plain, but then again, it was what they had in the starting areas. That's where I started, after all, so I guess I can't say much.

It was amusing watching the newbie's eyes lighten in amazement as the sun started to set, highlighting the buildings. The parkour skills that allowed us to climb the buildings, seemed to really excite the player following me. Who could blame him? That was my favorite way of travel. Feeling the wind rush through my hair made me feel free, but there were more important things that needed to be done. Once I'm done playing tour guide, I'll be back to fighting the Templar. I've been laying low for a few days, wandering around the city to get some upgrades, aka playing tons of side-missions. While, I was on this little charity stop, some fun could occur, right? A smirk crawled to my face as I saw a hay stack at the bottom of an upcoming building. Let's see how fast this player's reactions are. Willing myself to go faster, I threw myself off the building and dove into the pile, flipping to my back as I made contact with the target. From above I could see the newbie stopped at the edge of the building. Hmm...not imp-

I jumped out as the newbie dove into the hay pile. Sulking forward, I yanked him from the hiding spot. When he was out, he laughed with a goofy boyish smile on his face. I fought to keep the glare and shoved him away.

"Let's walk down here for a little." I told him as I walked through a crowd of civilians.

"Alright!"

As we passed the blacksmith's place I pointed it out. "There's the blacksmith, make sure you head there when your amour is damaged."

Auguste Oberlin, the town blacksmith, was outside and waved to us.

"Hey, Auguste." I waved back.

"You know him?"

"I've done the blacksmith quest." I answered.

"What else can you teach me?" He asked.

I stopped and looked around. What else could I teach him? I rested my hands on my hips and looked around the town. Sure there was a lot to explore, but the fun was in the exploring.

"I think I've taught you all you will need. Good luck, Rookie."


	3. A Old Pro of the Game

As I left the Rookie, I hide on a nearby building as he spun around. Why was I waiting here? I have to get going! This little tour was a setback already, I can't afford to waste anymore time. I sighed and left. Hmm, maybe I could get one more mission in before logging off. As I approached the entrance of the of the lair, I walked over to the sewer grate by the wall. Using my blade to open the grate, I crawled through. The scene changed to a large corridor and accepted the mission as the text box popped up in front of me. When the pesky box disappeared, I ran up the staircase to the right. At the top of the stairs, I walked into a church where a service was going on. Again the scene jumped to after the service and the crowd split. I joined a group of church goers and tried to blend in as my target walked by. I followed in across the room. Carefully, I walked from group to group as my person of interest walked through a gate. Two guys in wolf costumes walked up and gave a key to the Cardinal. After that, the trio split. So I approached the gate and walked through, but the Cardinal saw me and ran. Looks like this was going to get interesting. I picked up my pace, running through corridors and climbing boxes. Over an over, the Cardinal just kept yelling how he was getting closer to God and away from me. I pulled myself up onto one of the hanging planks and looked around. Where to now? To my left, a conveniently placed pipe was set right before an entrance to...guess what...another corridor. That meant there was going to be some fun parkour about to happen. I dove from the plank and landed with a soft thud onto the pipe and skipped onto the landing. Jogging through the short corridor, I saw another area to climb. Grabbing onto the light hanging above the doorway, I swung myself across the domelike room. Adding a front flip for some flare, I landed on a pipe sticking out of the wall. Looking around, I found that they circled around the room and that's also where the Cardinal was going. As I jumped and climbed and swung, I found myself on the roof. After a very long chase, I cornered the Cardinal and pulled my gun out. With one shot, the Cardinal fell to the ground and I took the key given to him by the Followers of Romulus and left. I jumped from the building into a sewer. Down in the sewer, I found a gated area and used the key; completing the mission. After receiving an achievement, I logged off.

My eyes opened and I sighed. Back to reality. Taking off my digitization helmet, I stretched and checked the time. How long was I in? It took my eyes a minute to adjust, but I could finally read the clock. My mom was going to kill me. If I was seeing the right time, then I was in the digital world for about seven hours, aka missing dinner. Groaning at the thought of having to sit through another lecture about making real friends, I fall back on my bed. I'll just have to avoid her again, but I have a feeling I'll have the same outcome as last time. Basically, mom spotted me coming out of my room to grab a bite to eat and stopped me. She had me in the living room for hours, telling me how this is hurting me. What she doesn't get, though, is it makes me feel alive. She'll never understand how it feels to not be afraid. My stomach growled and I snuck out of my room. Edging my way down the stairs, I rounded the corner to the kitchen. Luckily, for me, no one was there and I made a quick snack. Cleaning up was a flash and I practically sprinted up the stairs.

Once my door was shut behind me, I sat on my bed and ate. Hmm, I wonder what else I could do in 'Assassin's Creed'? I went onto my computer to start researching, but my door opened and I stopped.

"It's about time you came back to reality, Tess."

It was my older brother, Lee. I turned to face him.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" He teased and picked up my digitization helmet.

"Put that down, Lee!" I reached for my helmet.

"Or what?" He laughed, waving it over my head.

He was using his height to his advantage. Lee stood about a foot taller than me, so I just sat back down in my chair.

Lee scoffed. "What's the big deal with this thing?"

I heard my helmet hit the ground and my door shut. Rushing to my helmet, I picked it up and placed it on my night stand. That was pathetic. In the digitized world, I'm respected and known, but here...it's a different story. Since Lee stormed in here, I have a feeling mom will be in here soon. Crawling into bed, I turned off the lights and pulled my blanket over my head. Just as I thought, mom walked in minutes later.

"Contessa, I know you're awake." She said, but I didn't answer. "I'm tired of saying this, but you need to go outside more. Meet some people, who are actually real."

I blocked her out as she continued to say how I was wasting my life away in a fake world. She'd then go on how nothing in that world mattered and I should stop going there. She said it was dangerous. Said no one should ever enter an untested digital world. The only reason she lets me go in is because of that helmet made by Mr. Kiriygaya. I guess, that's not good enough anymore. As she finished her lecture, I thought about the whole SAO, Sword Art Online, incident. What if that happened again? I could've laughed. That would be a dream come true. I fell asleep with the thought of a digital world begin a reality, a smile was on my face.


End file.
